NEWS
Geomarine staff seek out dry land
September 2011
One of Geomarine’s senior engineers, Fraser Gibson, decided life was a bit dull in the office with a periodic trip to the ocean waves and decided to seek out somewhere he could be sure that he would be away from water, by going to the Sahara Desert. Fraser has a Land Rover 90, and he and a friend took part in the annual Sahara Rally. This took them all the way into the high Atlas Mountains of Morocco in 10 days, and included off road trial sections in the Sahara. They had a few adventures along the way, including seeing a fire engine career off the road.
Geomarine provided sponsorship, and a contribution to Fraser’s charity, the Alzheimer Society.
Going deep with remote drilling technology
June 2011
For the last year, Geomarine has been assisting Canyon Offshore with the development and upgrade of their ROV based drilling systems. These were originally built by Perry Slingsby Systems for Canyon Offshore, and intended for the deep sea mineral exploration programmes. At that time, the geotechnical input came for Geomarine Director, Jon Machin, who has been reunited with them as part of the upgrade programme. Jim Edmunds, Technology Director led Geomarine’s involvement in the project and helped specify the geotechnical tooling requirements. This has included development of pushed and piston sampling equipment, and a cordless CPT system.
The two drills are now in Europe and being geared up for their first live projects.
Engineering cables for whole life security
May 2011
Geomarine has always been a strong promoter of balancing the risk to a cable, to the depth of burial. So often, clients look for protection from anchoring, when this is really quite a low risk to the cable. This requires deep burial of a cable, but results in exponential increases in cost for the burial operation. To address this, Geomarine have been working with a number of clients to assess the real risk and optimise the burial depths. This has included extensive use of AIS (automatic identification system) data from vessels operating in the area. Results show just how closely vessels follow charted traffic separation zones and anchorages. It is even possible to identify where vessels are at anchor.
On one recent project, Geomarine were asked to assist in performing anchor trials to demonstrate the depth of anchor penetration to local stakeholders. Two representative anchors of different size and pattern were used for a series of trials in a variety of soil conditions. The results correlated well with theoretical models and gave a huge increase in confidence to the relevant authorities. As a result, agreement was reached for this installation of the cable at a manageable burial depth.
New offices for continued growth
October 2010
Geomarine has moved into state of the art offices less than 1km from Newcastle Airport. The office development at Prestwick Park is a high quality development and will provide the flexibility for Geomarine to continue to grow. The office provides a superb working environment with the opportunity to sit and enjoy lunch outside in the sunshine.
Managing Director, Peter Allan says “We are really excited about the new offices. They are a great place to work and give us the opportunity to continue to grow our business. The closeness to Newcastle Airport provides easy access by air, car and the local Metro. We are looking forward to welcoming clients and friends either coming to see us specially, or simply passing through on other business.
New Directors come on board
September 2010
Geomarine are pleased to announce that Dr Alan Common and Jim Edmunds have joined as directors of Geomarine. They both bring many years experience in the geotechnical engineering business. The respective roles will complement the experience of the existing directors, Dr Peter Allan and Jon Machin. Jim brings many years experience in the development and management of geotechnical equipment and will lead Geomarine’s technology group. This will support both our own technology developments and those of our clients.
Geomarine actively recruiting staff
March 2010
Geomarine has a number of very exciting developments which will be announced in the next few weeks. These developments will open up several new avenues for the core Geomarine business of offshore geotechnical engineering and we are actively recruiting staff at all levels. Prospective staff should have a degree in engineering or geology and ideally have offshore experience appropriate to their seniority.
We offer the opportunity to join a dynamic, growing company with a competitive salary and the chance to work on a range of exciting projects. We are currently putting an employee shareholding scheme in place and believe in rewarding all staff for the commitment they show to the development of Geomarine.
Please send applications in writing to (info at geomarine dot co dot uk). For further details and a discussion on the positions available, please contact Peter Allan at the address below.
Geomarine continues to grow
February 2010
As Geomarine comes up to celebrating its first full year of trading, we continue to grow. We are working for a range of clients throughout the world on a wide variety of projects ranging from deep water oil and gas developments to inshore renewable projects. Clients are calling on our particular expertise in geotechnics and equipment development to progress their projects in the most cost effective manner. For the coming year, we have some clear plans and targets for development of the company and our service ranging from research projects to new services working in conjunction with some of our key clients. These will be announced over the next few months.
New CPT tool for ROV Deployment
January 2010
Geomarine are pleased to release the geoROV tool to the market. The geoROV is a cone penetration test (CPT) tool designed primarily to be mounted on a ROV, but can equally be mounted on a frame for standalone operation. The system is based around a 5cm2 cone and all power and electronics comes from the ROV. This announcement follows successful use by one of our clients in 400m water depth in the Norwegian trench where it was used to investigate soil conditions during a trenching campaign. The unit has also completed a large number of tests in stand alone more in the Irish Sea.
We currently have two units available for use, with a further two in construction and expected to be available within the next month. One of these units will be available from our Singapore base to provide support to our APAC clients.
A full specification may be downloaded from our web site.
New Trencher for CT Offshore
September 2009
Geomarine is pleased to announce that we have recently completed work on a trencher for CT Offshore of Denmark. The trencher chassis and jet leg was designed by Geomarine with support from Cellula Robotics and is now working on the Gunfleet Sands Offshore Windfarm. The trencher has been specifically designed to meet the challenges posed by shallow water windfarm work and incorporates a number of features to provide a cost effective solution which maximises ease of use in the particularly demanding shallow water arena. As part of the work, we assisted other suppliers to CT Offshore to deliver the trencher including Sub Atlantic, who supplied the control system.